Re: Forget the Higher Levels

Correct horse battery staple!

Paragraph is from an older version; missed that when I added. Should read "Consider the shocking lack of support for DNSSEC, or the fact that amongst the mainstream browsers TLS 1.1 is only enabled by default in Safari and Chrome while TLS 1.2 is only enabled by default on iOS devices!" I am trying to get it changed...

Re: Where do draw the line?

Whether or not content marketing calls for truth in advertising is a hotly contested topic. Consider debates regarding the nomenclature of "cloud" an you have some appreciation for how this is perceived in the marketing community. My investigations say most feel content marketing must contain truth in advertising otherwise it is not content marketing. It is traditional marketing trying to look like content marketing.

"Keep the topic trending", however, is very much content marketing. What would separate this from traditional marketing (which tries to do the same thing) is that content marketing tries to keep it trending by providing useful information that the readers actually want to read. Traditional marketing doesn't care what tripe is written just so long as it makes the client in question look good.

The difference in these circumstances is almost one of attitude. Content marketing is about providing something in exchange for your time reading/watching/etc that you find to be of value. Traditional marketing is about "raising the profile" while "controlling the message." Traditional marketing treats people like robots to be programmed; content marketing treats people like individuals capable of making a rational assessment for products at hand.

Which is superior in the long run is the subject of great debate, however, I think that in IT circles at least, content marketing will be king.

Here ya go, mate: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/15/spiceworld/

Re: Where's "flood communities with paid commenters until everything else is drowned out?"

That would be traditional marketing. "Control the message."

@NL13L5 Simple: Intel's storage guys have never done a damned thing for me, ever. In fact, outside of the network team - who got me some sample cards so I could write some reviews and test some things - Intel has generally been an impenetrable fortress of traumatizing marketing fluff that I have more or less avoided*.

I've been an AMD man for ages. Only recently have I had to start building servers without Opterons inside. When I bought - and wrote about! - SSDs for my own testlab, I bought Kingston Hyper-X based on a combination of price and the Kingston brand name. I think over the years of writing for The Register I've proven that I take the time - and put a fuckload of my own money - into testing products from a variety of manufacturers.

I'm a nasty, cynical, hard-to-please type that rarely has a nice thing to say about anyone. (Ask Microsoft.) I generally don't like whinging in public - unless I am really tweaked - and so I try hard to write articles about things I actually like. (Why tell the world "this sucks" when you could tell the world "this doesn't suck, use this!")

If you honestly think that I'm a shill for Intel you're a fool. I have a price - every man does - but that price is far higher than anyone has ever been willing to offer. Right now, I am on track to build a company with me at the head where I write about technology for a living, tell people how to run their companies and get paid for it, manage to pay off my debts in a reasonable period of time and even retire to write my book while I'm still young enough to remember it.

So tell me, dear N13L5, what possible reason could I have to be a shill for anyone? Do you think an SSD or a server, a phone of a software licence will buy me off? I get paid to troll people on the internets. That's the best job ever; the price to "buy" me out of that comfort zone is pretty damned high. Ambition is expensive and so am I.

*I once won a PC in a contest sponsored by Intel. However I can guarantee you that this didn't make me any more disposed to like them. The Badaxe motherboard in that PC was made of raw, elemental failure.

Re: Great session...

I believe comments were moderated.

Wish I could compare. The Fat Twin emphatically does not kick out a lot of heat. It is the most power-efficient gear I have ever used. I could see 4 racks of them being a problem whereas 4 racks of 5U servers is not, but then I would be running 320 2P servers instead of 32 2P servers in the same space. Mind you, living in Canada, that is probably only a issue 2 months out of the year...

Re: Consolidation

Yeah, noticed Zenprise, but they didn't pique my interest. I have a list of over 100 MDM companies. I had to cut it down to something readable. :/

Meraki

I swear, it's a cult.

Re: So, what is MDM?

...really? This has to be explained? I mean, I realise that some of the newer terms and stuff have to be described while they are still relative unknowns...but...MDM? Do I also need a link for virtualisation? Or RAID? Genuinely curious here...I was under the impression MDM has been "a thing" for long enough that we all knew what it was...

I think different tiers of data can sustain different RPO. With something like Storage Profiles in VMware that can be made easy. I do not, for example, care overmuch if my webservers get reverted to yesterday; they grab their info from a centralized storage location with is disaggregated from the individual VMDK of the PaaS VM itself.

You just gave me a great idea for an article. Much appreciated.

+1 to marketing for the witty response. I'll check out the resources mentioned in the hopes they answer my question. I'm hoping we're not simply being asked to substitute one bottleneck for another...

Re: Great article

More than just flushes; serious, click the link on that. (Or rather, it is about flushes, but it really gets in to how ZFS does them and what mechanisms it can use if it "owns" the disk. Also how to configure ZFS so that the damned thing works. It's a truly great link.)

Also: I cannot claim complete credit on things like links. I have a great research team to back me up. It helps to have additional eyes to check things over.

Re: in short..

Use the Queen's proper English, strong and free. Canadian, eh?

Re: Literally bulletproof storage

I didn't mention StoreVirtual because I have never had the opportunity to play with it or even see a demo. It's on my list.

Re: RAID 5 shouldn't even be named unless living under the bridge

Have a related SATA series all you want, but your SAS drives had damned well better be of superior quality to the SATA drives. If the SATA version of your SAS line is something you are only willing to cover with a 1 year guarantee then I do not have warm fuzzies about the non-marketing-bull MTBF on your SAS line...

Re: Profile Driven Storage

Sir, SSO backs on to AD if you should choose. Works like a charm.

Re: Fault Tolerance

Stratus bought Marathon

Re: too complicated for small to mid size businesses

I deploy VMware Essentials Plus kits to all my SMBs. A separate feature, looking at VMware for the SMB market is currently under construction.

You are 100% correct. I sincerely apologize for the screw-up. The hell of it is, I even knew that, and had it flagged for change, but missed it in the final version. 15 lashes with a wet noodle have been applied and the change made.

Cheers.

Re: Not worth the power they use?

Fairly simple; I may possess the hardware for these other servers outright, however, they are expensive to power. FLOPS/watt on them versus the Fat Twin units means that were I to go out and buy a Fat Twin to replace the three racks of older gear that I have I would pay for the faster and more capable Fat Twin in less than 6 months simply out of the power savings.

To me, that means the older systems aren't worth the power they use.

Re: Virtualization?

Haven't tried Eucalyptus. VMware ESXi 5.1 works like a hot damn. Openstack too. Server 2012 works as well.

Re: Terrible review

And you're wrong. Any network card for which you have good, low-level access can be reconfigured to send non-standard Ethernet frames. It takes a little bit of bit-bashing on the driver creator's part, but you can turn a regular old network card into something that will make FCoE frames.

What you cannot do is send those frames over a standard ethernet network unless you have similarly updated your switch. To be clear: you are not going to be getting firmware from D-link to this, but you can usually get your higher-end Cisco stuff upgraded to handle the non-standard frames. This means that you can do FCoE point-to-point only unless you invest in the right infrastructure (which should include CNAs, make no mistake) but that you can make a NIC speak FCoE frames if you tinker with it enough. (Nobody does it because what would be the point?)

The fact that you've never rewritten a firmware or driver (or done any real bit-banging) doesn't mean others haven't. Please bear that in mind the next time you wander around accusing people of things.

You'll also note that while I said that a regular network card could be made to speak either protocol, I only discussed iSCSI as being in in sort of practical use without a CNA. And now we've had this little conversation in the comments so there is even more information available. Internet!

Funny you should ask that. The reason this took so long to come together was that Dell was originally supposed to ship me a C6220 to test. We were going to to a head-to-head; showcase each unit it isn't own article and then really tear into each of them with an array of tests. Dell backed out at the last minute and so I was down to testing the Supermicro against the rest of my lab.

Kind of sucks; Dell's switch was quite a nice piece of gear. Supermicro and Dell went pretty head-to-head on that, hard to say one was a clear winner. I would have been interested to see Dell's C6220 in action, especially when it came to the resilience of the power plane and its thermal responsiveness. So I sadly cannot answer you regarding the C6220. It looks nice on paper; but we all know how misleading that can be.

What I can say is that Supermicro's stuff has come a long way in the past 10 years. More critically, they seem to be putting a lot more time and effort into making their units able to withstand high temperatures (so that you can run your datacenter hotter, thus saving rather a lot of money) and into completely over-engineered power systems. Not only are the power planes resilient, but Supermicro makes their own PSUs; and they are crazy efficient.

If and when I get equipment from other vendors, you know I'll run it through the wringer. From server stacks like the Fat Twin to the humble USB stick; I've got a test lab, let's break this stuff!

Re: It's not the hardware itself...

It has the same level of R&D as the big players. And they HCL. And they certify. And....pretty much everything. Supermicro isn't exacy "just a whitebox vendor" anymore. Yes, they do sell units on a whitebox basis...but they also have excellent support options, especially if you buy big enough to be doing whole datacenters through them. Might be time you talked with tbem about the options, rather than rather than rely on assumptions that - it seems - are years out of date.

Re: what luck

Pretty orthogonal, actually. I had to work for six months to get a unit to review. It was worth it. Great bit of gear. If you have some ideas as to tests you'd like me to run, please, let me know! I'll run any tests that I reasonably can. :)

Re: So it's better supported than vPro in desktops then?

Yeah; the networking team's drivers are a cut above most. I don't have anything good to say about the old IGPs (though I admit to not having given the Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge gens a whirl) and the vPro stuff has always been a little on the flaky side.

I was at one point going to do a full review of the Intel vPro stuff. Alas, I could only get hold of the vPro stuff in my Ivy Bridge Eris 3 nodes; I couldn't get my hands on any of the mobile vPro stuff, even for a month of testing. So I can't really test the fullness of the offering and abandoned the project. :(

Ah well; I have a SAN to build this year. That should be an interesting thing...

Re: Well...exactly!

The idea that Hadoop is "cheaper" is a myth. Hadoop solves the "expensive server" problem by spamming a whole bunch of shitty consumer-grade hardware at the problem. If you do the research into the subject and talk to the right people there is rather a lot of dissention as to whether or not this actually results in an over price drop.

You see, the expensive databases (Oracle, DB2, etc) are really tightly coded the hardware for performance. They aren't perfect, but they are a hell of a lot more efficient than Hadoop. Plus, you generally get away with doing what you need to do on a single (or smallish number) of exceptionally powerful boxes. This drives down your power, cool, space and networking bills by quite a bit.

You can overcome some of the inherent limitations with Hadoop if you have shit-hot programmers, but as you pointed out, SMBs don't. What's more, as the traditional DB folks are being kicked out of the higher end positions thanks to Hadoop actually being useful (and cheaper) when you get to petascale, the cost of the expertise required to do Neat Things with traditional databases is plummeting.

I have on hand a handful of system that could theoretically be Hadoop nodes. They would be exceptionally shitty Hadoop nodes and they wouldn't come anywhere close to providing the compute, IOPS or network bandwidth required to do the imagery analysis discussed above. Assuming, of course, I could find a dev to program it.

The ability to use consumer hardware doesn't mean it's cheaper. It means it scales out in a more linear fashion. When you have a small scale budget, limited space, limited cooling and big requirements, Hadoop just isn't the thing.

Re: Difference between a Lada and Jaguar

The Lada makes it 10 years before requiring an overhaul and is a decent commuter, while the Jag falls apart every 300km (or aftrr the first foot of snow, whichever is sooner)? Because in my experience a reasonably well cared for Lada keeps ticking well beyond the Jags (which are the most unreliable, overpriced shit on the road.)

Then again, I'm judging by the standards of "a good commuter car for Edmonton, Alberta." Which - for me and mine - is all that matters. (Still take a Toyota any day. Get 25 years out of those things.) I don't actually care what standards you are judging by. They don't apply to me.

Re: Brand new code?

CSC work and it works well. There is also a straightforward upgrade path to its use that is easier than any other IIS upgrade before it. I don't buy "untested" here; it is an evolution of certman and IIS. Not a bloody metal --> hypervisor transition.

That's what baffles me. Server 2012 is GOOD CODE. Not only that, it has the exact answer to this exact problem. You know me well enough by now to understand that I would never say this lightly, but...CSC doesn't behave like Microsoft "never use version 1.0 of anything" code.

The whole incident is bizzare.

Re: Which model is it?

Well, Bollocks. I've had both of those things floating around the lab at one point or another. To be honest, I ran both of 'em through the wringer - I got the 3420 for a client a few weeks after the 3620 showed up for review. I obviously made a boo-boo and looked at the wrong switch when writing the model number down for the article.

I will ping the sub ed and ask him to change this. For the record, the article applies equally to both switches. I put them both to the wall and they performed identically.

Re: Making excuses

If I "make excuses tinged with embarrassment" it is because of 10+ years of relentless ad homenim attacks and professional degradation by the Cisco indoctrinated crowd. Let me be perfectly clear here: D-Link's business switches have been stalwart, reliable elements of every single network I've ever built except one. They have proven to be reliable, capable and simple. They are all you Really Need until you get big enough to start needing to futz around with layer 3 stuff.

That said, I have over the years developed a "trauma victim" complex discussing such things in public because of the vehemence of the backlash from people who make 8x my salary. It is no different than the vehemence I encounter when I defame Microsoft's licensing practices regarding VDI, or deride the manner in which the UI decisions were taken regarding Windows 8. People attack me personally.

They question my upbringing, my genetics, my intelligence, competence, professional capability…they even go so far as to contact my employers and clients and demand that I be fired immediately for quite obviously being unworthy to work in the IT industry at all. I have been cyber-stalked by people who are angry that I dare question Microsoft's innate "right" to tell us how to run our networks (and their "right" to punish us with breathtaking licensing regulations should we try to implement anything in an unapproved manner.)

Similarly, I have had some rally Bad Stuff thrown my way for daring to mention that OpenWRT on a Netgear WNDR2700 v2 can actually go toe-to-toe with a lot of the better high-end wifi gear, (or even a lot of Cisco's stuff, depending on the application.)

To put it simply: high-end enterprise-class IT nerds with big stonking budgets have among their number an unfortunate number of bullies. They also believe in their own divine ability to judge what is "right" for everyone else; doubly so if they know zero details of the network in question.

I am not saying I'm a saint. I really wish a rock from space would fall on the Microsoft licenceing department and wipe them all out. It's vindictive, it's mean…it may even make me "evil" to wish such a thing. But I do; that one collection of individuals has cause me – personally and professionally – more grief than any other group of people on the planet, including the creepy cyberstalkers. I am aware it is not okay (at all) to "hate" an identifiable group and I wish I knew of an off switch. I don't like that part of myself, it's ugly, horrible and unprofessional in the extreme. It is also functionally instinctual by now, given how many times per day I bump up against the problems they cause me.

There is, however, a difference between wishing a thing and acting upon said dark impulses. Trash talk on the internet (or in person, or what-have-you) is one thing. Actively going out of your way to sabotage an individual's career, company, personal relationships, etc is something else entirely.

No matter how much the decisions made my MS's licenceing goons have directly negatively influenced my own life - and those of people I care about - I sure as heck don't send angry little e-mails to Microsoft demanding that the licensing department all be fired, or actively stalking them and trying to ruin their lives.

I restrict myself to griping about how much I loathe the bastards on the internet. I work to show people that there are alternatives to Microsoft out there and I try hard to explain why getting locked into Microsoft's ecosystem could be bad for your business. I also praise Microsoft where and when it is due; for all my gripes about anti-customer behaviour and licenceing shenanigans, they do make some of the best technology on the planet.

So why do I "make excuses tinged with embarrassment?" Because I reflexively know that by not writing articles that are top-tier enterprise-class whitepaper friendly I am in for a rough ride. Most of the time it is just crap thrown at me in the comments or by e-mail. I'm down with that. Even if a whole bunch of you want a rock from space to land on me. I can accept that poking the sacred cow on a regular basis makes me the Least favourite Person amongst quite a few folks.

But I never know how far it will go. I never know how far some whackjob will take it. People don't just keep their griping to internet flame wars and a little light trolling any more.

It's one thing to wish ill on someone. It's another thing entirely to go out and start causing that ill…and I honestly fear that something as simple as "praising D-Link as a viable, capable solution" will result in people trying to do just that.

It's funny, you know. Someone like the Microsoft licensing folks can put in place licenceing restrictions that invalidate the business models of hundreds of businesses, cost tens of thousands of jobs at a whim. We defend their "right" to do so and vociferously shout down anyone who questions their activities. When someone small time (like me) speaks up to praise a product and real harm from an untraceable, anonymous assailant befalls them for it, we tell them to "suck it up, princess." We tell them that it's "just part of the job."

*sigh*

Back to work. I've more reviews to write. I found more things I like that my fellow sysadmins should probably know exist.

Re: Adtran

If any show up on my doorstep, I will. :)

"...it will be a one way trip."

No something that would discourage me. Why should it discourage him?

Re: You just gotta love marketeers!

Actually, the first rule of marketing is "have a decent product to sell." Sadly, this hasn't been taught professionally in a long time.

Re: @SuccessCase

@SuccessCase Funny, I am able to find quite a few active production liens on scale motorised bicycles ("trick bikes") all over the internet. Seems to me there is no conspiracy to stop producing them.

I remember there being announcements to stop producing netbooks, some of which even mentioned explicitly (usually during earnings calls) how good this was for the bottom line. There was also Microsoft who explicitly forbade netbooks with decent specs in their licenceing, and Intel who explicitly forbade decently specced atom systems

None of that is a conspiracy either; it is a bunch of manufacturers independently choosing to screw is all by avoiding – and actively attempting to suppress – the cheaper, "good enough" option. Especially because it was so popular.

Just because you have a hard on for clock cycles you don't use doesn't meant most people do. Quit projecting your own inadequacy issues onto the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world has nothing to compensate for.

For those of us just tying to get shit done, battery life means more than anything. A1 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 12 3 n atom is just fine for us.

Re: @SuccessCase

Can't really say I agree. Windows 7 Starter is just fine for a netbook, and it runs perfectly okay in 2GB of RAM. The only real issue is the stock 4200rpm drive my little Samsung shipped with, but a cheap-o SSD solves the problem.

Presuming Microsoft wouldn't shit a brick, you could easily sell a 1280x800 netbook with 4GB of RAM on an Intel Atom with Windows 7 Starter and an SSD for $400 and the battery would last 12 hours. It would sell like fucking hotcakes. It would wreck the notebook market (whatever is left of it) and start clawing back some of the tablet market.

Manufacturers won't. Microsoft certainly has no interest in letting them, even were they so inclined. End users, however, would buy the shit out of that netbook. The demand is there and "Windows on the device" isn't the problem...though Microsoft very much so is.

@SuccessCase

Actually, you're full of shit. Netbooks have been a raging success amongst the people out there buying computers. They are not a success amongst the people who sell computers. People want to buy netbooks. Nobody wants to sell them.

It's a case of manufacturers protecting margins, not demand falling out from under the category. But hey, you have fun with your toys, I'll have fun with mine. I'll wave at you from the bar all the way over there by the overloaded power plug. Hey, did you just unplug that guy so you could charge? First come first serve; get over it.